


When All Is Gone

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Family, Family Drama, Family Issues, Gen, Light Angst, search for god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-23 21:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8343667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: Family means doing what you know is right for the wrong reasons and doing what is wrong for all the right ones.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Livejournal in 2010.

Lightening crashed around them, Dean sheltered behind Castiel's wings. Lucifer was standing before them in all his glory, his beauty enough to make Dean's legs start to bend, to start to kneel.

“You shall not,” Castiel began to say. But the world was spinning, the light threatening to shear Dean's eyes from his head...

And then nothing.

****

@@@@@

“Dean?” Sam asked again, shaking his brother. He still wouldn't move. Still lay on his back on the couch in Bobby's house. Still felt as cold as ice.

“Tell me again what happened,” Bobby said with a deep sigh. He wheeled himself closer to Dean and put another blanket over him.

“I don't know!” Sam cried. He stood up, his full height making him seem impossibly taller to Bobby's eyes. “One minute he was driving, the next...” Sam closed his eyes, trying to remember himself. Everything had gone a little fuzzy after that. “The next he just...There was a light, in the sky...” He sank down to the floor, flashes of remembrance circling his mind. “And it was falling. The ground shook with it. Then Dean's eyes opened wide and...” he waved over at his brother, “...he's been like that ever since.”

“Wonder you boys weren't killed on the road,” Bobby muttered.

“Couldn't. The car stopped. Just like that.”

“You can say thanks in your own time.” Bobby and Sam jerked alert, startled to see Gabriel standing by the fireplace.

“What – how – when -”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Which question is it going to be Sam?”

“How did you get in here? Castiel's wards...” Bobby began, fingers twitching to reach down and grab his gun, but knowing it would be a useless and possibly last move.

Gabriel followed the movement with a wry smile. “Castiel's only a foot soldier. His wards are basic at best.” He looked around the room, taking it all in and sizing them all up. Bobby bristled but bit his tongue. Getting pissed at the Trickster was one thing, an Archangel was a whole other problem.

“So Lucifer could....” Sam asked, faltering at the stare Gabriel levelled at him.

“Lucifer's not as inventive as I am.”

He stepped forward, toward Dean, but Bobby automatically wheeled himself in front of the Archangel. Gabriel tilted his head, surprised.

“What are you doing here?” Sam asked.

“Do you want me to help your brother or not?” Gabriel asked instead, ignoring Sam's question.

“You can do that?” Sam asked, swallowing down any hope there might be in his voice.

“I can do a lot of things, Samuel, you should know that.” Gabriel's leer sent something not quite unpleasant along Sam's spine.

“And we should trust you why?” Bobby asked.

Gabriel shrugged. “I don't see any other angel here, do you?” He frowned as his eyes became unfocused. “Where is Castiel anyway?”

“Probably hiding from you,” Sam muttered.

Gabriel ignored him. “Move back.”

Reluctantly Sam and Bobby did as they were told. Gabriel leaned down, pressing his fingers onto Dean's forehead. “Oh, Lucifer,” he murmured, almost too quiet for Sam to catch. Before he had the chance to ask what was going on though, the world turned white.

****

@@@@

“Where the hell are we?” Dean asked, coughing to clear his throat of the feel of ash. And...wait... “Tell me we're not...”

“In hell?” Gabriel asked. “Yeah, kiddo, I think we are.” He got up and stretched, the soft backbeat of wings strangely comforting. “Hell of a spell Lucifer whammied you with.”

“Spell? When did he – hang on. What are you doing here?”

“He was helping...I think,” Sam replied. He twisted his legs, helping Bobby to get upright in his chair. “He just showed up,” he continued, apologetic shrug the only explanation Dean knew he was going to get.

“Peachy.” Dean looked around. “So, where's Cas?”

Sam frowned. “He wasn't with us.”

“Oh? But I thought...” Dean shook his head. “I could have sworn he was there when Lucifer...”

“When Lucifer what?” Gabriel asked sharply. Dean narrowed his eyes. “Dean, this is important. What did Lucifer...”

“I saw him,” Dean said. “Luci's true form. Cas was there too – protecting me.” He looked down at his hands, saw the blood and grime coated on them, recognised he knew not how that it wasn't his. “What do you think....”

“He might just have been stretching his wings,” Gabriel murmured to himself. “Releasing his true form...but then...I don't know why Castiel would have...”

“Where is he?” Sam asked Gabriel. He moved to stand in front of the Archangel, to fully catch his attention. “Where's Cas?”

Gabriel shrugged. “No foot soldier could take on the Morningstar. He must be dead.”

Dean looked up sharply but didn't say anything. Cas had taken on an Archangel before. Sure, it hadn't gone well, but he'd come back to tell the tale...only of course he hadn't. Had refused to say anything about what had happened to him, where he had gone, no matter how subtly or not he and Sam had asked. Just like he'd refused to tell them where Gabriel had sent him.

“So little faith for an Archangel.”

The group turned as one to see Castiel standing in the corner. He looked paler than before, hair flat, streaks of ash across his face, trench coat twisted and bloody. He was leaning against the wall as if it was the only thing keeping him upright and Dean had the most ridiculous urge to go over there and hold him close. The flash of alarm that Gabriel might be reading his mind was followed by Gabriel's calculating look in his direction.

“Huh,” Gabriel said after a moment. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

Castiel's only response was to slide to the floor. Sam, who'd been staring at Gabriel, just happened to see the look of worry that danced across Gabriel's features before it was replaced by perfectly schooled indifference.

“Cas, you okay?” Dean asked. Castiel gave him a perfectly Winchester-like “what-the-hell-does-it-look-like” expression in response. “Right...”

Castiel sighed as Dean helped him to sit up a bit better, fingers brushing ever so gently against Castiel's forehead.

“Tell me you didn't do somethings stupid, like try to kill Lucifer?” Gabriel asked.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Castiel snapped. “I saw one of our brethren fall. When I went to see who it was, Lucifer attacked.” He turned to Dean, more crestfallen than usual. “He called up for support from those nearby who'd spent the longest time in hell. Regardless of whether they were demons or not.” Castiel paused and looked anywhere but at Dean. “Hell leaves a mark.”

Dean nodded. “Lucky me.”

Castiel turned away, concentrating on talking to the tips of Sam's shoes instead. “He saw a chance and he took it, using his full power...” He stopped and the others waited, but nothing more was coming.

“Uh, Cas, what did he do?”

Castiel turned to the others, seeing blank expressions on all their faces, even that of Gabriel. “Wyoming no longer exists.”

A sharp intake of breath was their only response. Incomprehensible to deal with anything on that scale. They just stood or sat in silence for a beat.

“And we're in hell because?” Bobby prompted.

Again, Castiel made sure he wasn't looking any of them in the eye when he spoke. “I needed to get you away from Lucifer, somewhere he wasn't...”

“And you picked hell,” Gabriel interrupted. “Nice.” Castiel flinched at the sarcasm.

“I couldn't do it the first time,” Castiel explained in a quiet murmur to Dean. “I think I put you in a coma...?”

“Yeah,” Sam replied, “scared the crap out of me.” As Castiel seemed to slump even further into himself Sam wished, not for the first time, that he had a handy time travel device. “I...” But Dean's glare made him stop before he dug an even bigger hole for himself.

“Hey,” Dean said, as cheerfully as he could muster, “at least we're all in one piece. And getting out of hell – who hasn't done that before?”

Bobby muttered something under his breath very like “idjit”, but everyone ignored him. Gabriel rolled his eyes so hard, Sam couldn't imagine he hadn't hurt himself.

“And I suppose that's where I come in?” Gabriel asked.

Castiel visibly bristled. “I can do it...” He started to stand, leaning against the wall.

“Oh, quit it before you fall down,” Gabriel said. And in another flash of light, they were all back in Bobby's house, a fine layer of ash falling all around them. Only Gabriel wasn't covered in it. “Well, don't all rush in with the thanks at once, will ya?”

Sam snorted. “Does this mean you've picked sides, then?”

Gabriel looked offended at the question. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“But...”

“I was just curious,” he replied with a shrug. “You...” But he stopped, eyes going unfocused and then centering on Castiel. The others turned towards Castiel too and all of them started. Castiel's eyes were closed, his chest barely rising as he sat, slumped on the floor up against the front door.

“Cas,” Dean was saying. “Cas, can you hear me? Are you okay?” He gently shook Castiel's shoulder, and then more harshly, eliciting the same low moan, but no other sound. “What's wrong with him?”

Gabriel stepped forward slowly. “I couldn't see, before. It was too dark and I...I haven't stared at anyone's true form in such a long time...” It was obvious that he wasn't talking to them, had forgotten that anyone else was in the room even, until Sam roughly grabbed him by the elbow.

“What's wrong with him?”

“His wings,” Gabriel murmured. “They're nearly completely burned away.”

**@@@@@@**

Castiel lay on the bed in Bobby's old room, looking like a puppet who'd had all his strings cut. He was barely breathing, the occasional moan the only sign that he was still alive. Dean and Sam were conferring in the corner, books spread out on the floor before them. Gabriel was leaning in the doorway, sucking on a lollipop.

“Well?” Dean snapped after a moment. “Two days he's been like this. What can we do?”

Gabriel took an impossibly long time in answering. “Nothing.”

Dean's hands balled into fists. “I swear to...”

“Who, God?” Gabriel interrupted with a harsh laugh that made the Winchesters' hairs stand on end. “I hardly think so.”

Sam placed a comforting hand on Dean's arm. “But there has to be something...”

Gabriel bit into his sweet, the crack of candy setting Dean's nerves on edge. “Why?” Sam continued to look blankly at him. “Why does there have to be something?” Gabriel said, very slowly, as if talking to an extremely young child. “Why can't it just be the way it is?”

Sam stepped in front of Dean before he lunged at Gabriel and did something they'd all regret. “Because we have to try. Even when there's no hope, we still have to try.”

“Why?” Gabriel asked, tilt of his head suggesting that he genuinely did want to know the answer.

“Because that's what makes us human,” Dean snapped, pushing past his brother and eyeballing Gabriel. “Because that's what we do.” Then he disappeared downstairs, in the hope that Bobby had come up with something.

Gabriel and Sam stared at each other until Gabriel moved closer and Sam just about managed to hold his position.

“You're really not going to say yes to Lucifer, are you?”

“No,” Sam replied, voice barely above a whisper. “And if you know of any way to save Castiel, you need to use it. If you don't care that's he's your brother, fine.” He fought back a smile at Gabriel's almost flinch. “But he's our friend. He's gone against his entire family to help us. He _died_ trying to save us.” Sam turned to look at Castiel's still form. “I don't think I ever even thanked him.”

“He wouldn't want your thanks. Foot soldiers can be single-minded about...”

“Will you stop it!” Sam shouted and Gabriel took a step back, surprised. “Stop talking about him like that. You don't know anything about Castiel. You don't know anything about any of us.”

Gabriel reached out a hand to stop him but Sam side-stepped and headed out of the room.

“Guess it's just you and me, huh, little brother?” Gabriel murmured. He sank down in the chair next to Castiel's bed. “Look – I know we haven't exactly been close. Or, at all. It's just...you were gone. Fresh out of existence, and I knew you were being foolish, thinking you could stop Zachariah. Assuming Father wanted you to stop him. Or didn't.” He pulled a hand through his hair. “You were just one more casualty okay? I barely even remember you from Heaven. If I hadn't been paying attention to the Winchesters all these years I probably wouldn't have any idea who you were...”

“Is that your idea of a bed side manner?” Dean asked incredulously from the doorway. “And I thought my Dad was bad.”

Gabriel straightened, annoyed at himself for not realising Dean had been standing behind him. “I was just explaining....”

There was a slight rustle of sheets and then Castiel's voice was interrupting.“You're afraid if our Father did bring me back, that He'd be disappointed in you.” It was only a harshly croaked whisper, but it was enough. Gabriel stood up, knocking over the chair.

“Our Father doesn't care about any of us. Do you know how long it is since I last saw him?” The paintings on the walls began to fall to the floor and Sam came bounding up the stairs, followed by Bobby's shouts of alarm. “He left first.”

Castiel stared at him, a mix of sympathy and annoyance making him seem completely human. That surprised Gabriel most of all. “That is no excuse.”

A racking cough forced Castiel to flail for a moment and then Dean on one side and Sam on the other helped the angel sit up.

“You okay?” Sam asked. Castiel just nodded and Sam wasn't sure whether he should believe him or not.

“His wings are healing by themselves,” Gabriel told them dully.

“That's great, right?” Dean asked. Hope lit up his face and Sam smiled to see it.

“No, that's not great,” Gabriel replied. “That's about as far from great as you could possibly get.”

And then he turned and walked out of the room.

**@@@@@@**

“So let me get this straight,” Bobby was saying. “You mean that God didn't heal you? Because if he had you wouldn't be healing yourself?” He took off his baseball cap and threw it across the room. “I don't understand.”

“You and me both,” Dean muttered. He poured out three more shot glasses of whiskey and downed his own and Castiel's in quick succession. Sam was still idly sipping at his own. Gabriel, lurking in the corner, drank straight from his own bottle.

“Angels are created from light, different strands of light, atoms...things incomprehensible to humans.” Castiel ignored Bobby's “you got that right,” and continued. “We are able to heal our own vessels, to keep them alive as well and as long as possible.” He shot Dean a look that Gabriel, who had been studying them both closely for the past hour, couldn't quite understand. “Or in as fit a condition as to be workable, if not survivable.” Oh, Gabriel got it then. “But our true form...once damaged the damage is supposed to be permanent. I was brought back whole after...Raphael. I was weaker, less powerful...”

“In line with the Old Man's teaching policy,” Gabriel interrupted, words slightly slurred.

Castiel frowned and then shrugged. “But I was fully healed. This...” he waved behind him, at the place where the others assumed his wings were hidden away, “there should be no reason for my wings to be healing like this, unless...”

“...God works in mysterious ways?” asked Sam. He giggled at the way Dean glared at him, then hurriedly downed his shot to cover up his embarrassment, and the flush of something that Gabriel's affectionate smile did to him.

“Unless I'm regaining my strength...”

“And why would God bother doing that now when he didn't before?” Bobby asked. He nodded, trying to wrap his head around the seemingly insurmountable problem of angelic politics. “Maybe He figures we need one souped up angel, seeing as no other candidates appear to be standing up to the plate.”

Gabriel took a long gulp of whiskey. “Bite me.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Does it matter? Cas is healing okay. We're all alive. Gabriel hasn't killed me today. Things are looking up.”

Bobby took a shot, downed it, and then grabbed the bottle from Dean as he moved into the kitchen. Gabriel he allowed to keep his, and Gabriel saluted to the sentiment.

“Hey...” Dean muttered, before sinking down out of his chair and onto the floor. As soon as they had realised that Castiel's health was improving he'd wanted to move, and rather than argue they'd set up the sofa in the living room as a bed for him, and it was here he'd been lying as the others had drunk; Dean had always poured out Castiel a shot and Castiel had just as often shook his head.

Gabriel watched them all with too sober eyes. It was no fun playing drunk when the other party knew he was faking it. Instead he sat down on the floor next to Sam who's head had been sank back against the wall, eyes closed.

“So we've got what?” Gabriel asked the room at large. “Team Michael, Team Lucifer, and now Team God?”

“I thought Team God didn't exist?” Castiel asked.

“Just a figure of speech,” Gabriel replied. “Because there's no way I'm joining up with “Team Winchester”.

Sam held himself very still. “But you are picking a side?” He looked over at Dean and just caught a glimpse of – hope, disappointment, hurt? - on Castiel's face before Gabriel regained his full attention.

“If you two stubborn idiots completely refuse to be Lucifer and Michael's hosts, then we're just going to have to come up with an alternative, aren't we?”

“And our Father?” Castiel asked, very quietly.

“What about him?”

Castiel looked downcast. “Nothing,” he said and stood up, ignoring Dean's attempt at protest. “Nothing at all.”

“Cas,” Dean started to say but Castiel ignored him and headed out to the porch. He started to get up to go follow him, but Gabriel stopped him.

“I'll go.”

And he disappeared from the room.

“Yeah,” Dean said to Sam. “That's going to go well.”

Sam couldn't agree more.

**@@@@@@**

“I would like to be alone.”

“Tough.” Gabriel sat down on the steps next to Castiel. “Angels don't usually get to be alone.”

“I find I'm less afraid of my own thoughts, now that they are my only comfort.” Castiel's words were clipped and Gabriel couldn't help the sigh that escaped him.

“Castiel, you are...”

“What?” Castiel snapped. “What am I, exactly? Our Father's play thing, to be pulled apart and put together whenever he feels like it? Or my older brother's toy, to have its wings pulled off because he wanted to see what would happen?” Startled, Gabriel could think of nothing to say. “The Archangel's never really cared about the rest of us. We've always just been cannon fodder. And before...” He stumbled over his words. “Before I may have accepted this. But not now. Too much has happened, too much time has passed. Everyone abandoned me.” He stood up and started to walk away. Then he stopped and turned back to Gabriel. “You abandoned us before the real fighting even began. They might have listened to you then, but not now. It's too late.” Castiel turned away and started to walk, and something heavy and cold sank to Gabriel's stomach.

“Where are you going, Castiel? Castiel?”

“I'm going to find Him. Whatever the cost.”

“Are you going to stop him?” Dean asked from behind him. But Castiel was there one minute and gone the next and Dean knew there would be no way that he could track him.

“I don't think I could.”

“Some Archangel you are,” Dean muttered. He turned back into the house, passing Sam on his way back.

Sam stood watching Gabriel for some time, not sure what he could say. Not even having any idea what kind of ballpark of conversation starters they were in.

“Will you sit down, Gigantor. You're giving me the creeps.”

“Sorry,” Sam murmured, doing as Gabriel asked. “You okay?”

Gabriel snorted. “Shouldn't you be more worried about Cas?”

Sam shrugged. “Seemed like he knew what he was doing.”

Gabriel stared at him incredulously. “Finding out Father. Really?”

“Why not? If Cas believes God's out there somewhere, why can't you?”

Gabriel turned to look out at the cars and trucks littered around Bobby's yard. Broken pieces, destined never to be whole again.

“Because Castiel has never seen God. And he certainly didn't see him...” He stopped, Sam's hand on his arm the only thing that let him continue. “Before I left, he was, distant. Frail almost. Just as weary as the rest of us. Tired of all the in-fighting. Yet he couldn't chastise us, not when he'd made humans the same way; not when he loved the humans despite their faults. He could hardly not do the same with us, could he?” Gabriel turned to Sam, a hopeless look on his face. “And one moment our Father was there, and the next he wasn't.” He snorted. “We kept it quiet from the others, it was just our secret. Then, like all secrets, more and more people were let in on it. So the rumblings began and I couldn't stand it. I knew what was going to happen – could see it as plain as day. Michael and Lucifer locked in one final epic battle, all over again. And our Father, letting it happen. Letting even his most favourite creations wither and die.” A harsh laugh escaped his lips. “Because Lucifer was created with more love than our Father could return.”

“And you just went away, became the Trickster?” Sam asked, softly. He was aware that this was more than Gabriel had revealed to anyone in a very long time. That it was something precious he should savour.

“I tried so hard, so, _so_ hard, Sam, to keep it all together. To settle the arguments. But it was never going to be enough. It was killing me.” He turned pleading eyes on Sam. “I _couldn't._ ”

Sam nodded. “I know. Sometimes it just gets too much.” He realised he still had his hand on Gabriel's arm and reluctantly removed it. “I left once too. Hell, I left more than once.” He could hear Dean and Bobby in the kitchen, softly arguing over what they were going to have for dinner. “But I always came back. Family's important.” He smiled softly. “No matter how completely fucked up it is.”

Gabriel returned the smile, not quite reluctantly. “You really believe that, don't you? You, Dean, Bobby...your parents. The whole line of Hunter's before them.” He stared off into the distance, at the point where Castiel had disappeared. “You'd do anything for the other.”

“And stand up to them, when it's necessary.”

Gabriel nodded and then stood up. “Or go with them even when it's the most ridiculous, suicidal mission you ever heard of.”

“Especially then,” Sam replied.

“Don't wait up.”

And before he knew it, Gabriel was gone.

“Where'd he go?” Dean asked, from the doorway.

“To make amends,” Sam whispered, words taken away by the wind. Dean opened his mouth to ask again, then closed it. Something about Sam's posture made him wait, made him search out to the horizon, wondering if Castiel was safe, if Gabriel would help or hinder.

“Dinner's ready,” he murmured and Sam nodded, but didn't move. And Dean left him sitting on the porch, staring out at nothing. He'd come in in his own time, or Dean would drag him in later. Whether he wanted to come in or not.

Being the eldest had to come with some perks, after all.


End file.
